Consideration of Contemporary Russian Paintings (Revised Edition) ―The Tale of My Collection― Norio Ishii Contents On the occasion of publishing this book on the Internet …....………….….…….3 Foreword ……….………………………………………………………………27 Introduction …….………………………………………………………………29 First meeting…............………………………………………………………….35 The first painting.………. ……………………………………………………...39 Turning point ……….…….…………………………………………………….45 The search for good paintings...………………………………………………...49 Prelude for the introduction of paintings ….…………….………………….…56 Russian art museums ………………………………………………………......81 Features of contemporary paintings ……………………………………….…100 Artists leaping forward ……………………………………………………….121 Artistic level of contemporary paintings ………………….………………….136 Epilogue ……………………………………………………………………....154 Afterword ……………………………………………………………….…….164 Lecture “On Russian paintings” ………………………………………….……167 Main references ……………………………………………………………......196 List of illustrations/Russian Artists’ Union ranking …………….…………….198 Original foreword in Russian ………………………………………………….200 2 On the occasion of publishing this book on the Internet Seeing the situation in Japan, where almost no attention is paid to Russian realism paintings, I had a question, “Why did such situation arise, though these paintings are so splendid?” and in the end it became my motive to write this book. This is because I had been stationed at Moscow office of my company, engaged in international logistics, for a period of four years since 1989. At that time due to a strange coincidence of the circumstances in my private life appeared a new pleasure to appreciate and collect paintings as one of a small number of my hobbies, or rather I was completely absorbed in this pastime. Since then, I have always had the immeasurable pleasure and comfort thanks to the artistic charm of these paintings. Therefore, it was quite natural for me to have such a question. In the lapse of three or four years, however, such situation in Japan remained unchanged. In the meantime, I came to think that I should do something useful, even though it was small, so that the situation shall be changed for better, because in view of extremely high artistic level of contemporary Russian realism paintings, I think somebody on earlier occasion should introduce hereto these paintings in full scale. In reality, however, people who try to do it, if any, will be limited to a very small number. In other words, it means that it is even probable for me to wait for it still for long time in vain. If so, I would have to try to do something in my own way somehow without relying on others. That’s why, thinking over this or that which I could do at that time by process of elimination, what remained with me in the end was to write a book about these paintings based on my experience. In April of 1998, in half year after starting to write the manuscript, by which time about 70% of the draft of this book was ready, I was stationed in Moscow second time, therefore I accomplished this draft during the second time of my stay in Moscow. When I wrote up the draft, naturally I thought about the publication of this book first after I would return to Japan with the expiration of the term of my service. However, at the same time, paying attention to an enormous effect of rapidly-spreading information by the Internet, which many people in the world make use of, I had a plan to prepare for establishing my homepage some time near future after the publication of this book in Japan so that the specialists and art lovers etc. could read it in English and Russian which I know. As for the publication of this book in Japan I could realize it somehow in May of 2005. As a result, the book saw a response of the publication, modest as it was: I received a lot of praising comments from the readers and besides, although the number 3 was not big enough, this book has been kept in the libraries of the ordinary universities or the colleges, teaching art as a special field, or the public libraries, covering to some extent all over the country. Thus, the possibilities that this book will serve as a reference book of contemporary Russian realism paintings for people engaged in the special study of art or the practice of painting or art lovers. However, in a current situation of longstanding depression of the publishing world, where it is said that even a little bit high- priced book, especially an art literature, does not sell well, an insufficient demand for this book did not afford the publishing company to reprint it. So, under the existing conditions the effect of the publication will have to be quite limited contrary to my expectation. So, that’s why this time, at the preparatory stage for establishing my home-page on the Internet, as initially planned, I decided to publish on this website not only English and Russian translations, but also Japanese original. Till that time, I had re-read the text of this book translated into Russian over and over again even dozens of times and if in the process of re-reading I noticed any mistake and inappropriate or insufficient expression in the text of Japanese original, every time I corrected them and reflected these changes in Russian translation. And besides, in view of the decision to publish it in three languages, I newly wrote up this study to be put at the very beginning of this book to enhance its quality and also added the new information which appeared after the issue of this book. Although the change of the text is not so big as to express with the words of “revised version”, I dared to use this expression in the sense of the contents having somewhat changed. By the way, after my return home from the first stay in Moscow, seeing the situation in Japan which was almost equal to no attention being paid to Russian realism paintings, I simply thought without any careful consideration that this was because there was no environment in Japan enabling people to appreciate the excellent works of Russian realism painting at any time in art museums etc. However, the publication of this book gave me the opportunities to know of the tendency of the market in Japan for sale of paintings, through which I came to understand that only this is not the cause of the unpopularity of Russian realism paintings, but generally in Japan people have very little interest in the style of realism itself. In other words, I came to think that the reason why Russian paintings have not attracted much attention of the people consists not merely in the lack of opportunities to make their splendid works widely known, but also as a problem prior to this, a more serious reason lies in the fact that these paintings are portrayed by the style of realism. In Japan quite many artists, including amateur painters, paint the pictures with the 4 realism style and speaking from the experience that I saw the exhibits at the exhibitions inviting public participation or of other natures, there exist the works belonging to good paintings in their own way. However, from the standpoint of demand, a good price won’t be bidden even for the works of artists regarded as the leading authorities in realism paintings. Needless to compare it with the extraordinary prices for the works of the artists of Japanese style of paintings or the avant-garde enjoying high popularity, as this poor demand of purchase symbolizes the unpopularity of the style of realism itself. However, thinking anew, this unpopular situation had continued since long before, but I was not aware of it because before and after I got especially interested in paintings, the circumstance in Japan was such that impressionism and postimpressionism were too often in the news and, maybe, distracted by this, I did not pay any attention to the reverse side of this phenomenon that realism paintings were left alone out of the focus of attention. Therefore, in order to have a correct understanding for myself, I, with a careful consciousness of investigating the cause, once again read the Western art history, mainly focusing on the style of realism. Also, thinking over the matter by myself, I confirmed in my own way the existing fact that the specified factors having caused unpopularity of the style of realism paintings, such as a mere accident or a mistake similar to doing up the button in a wrong hole of the shirt which occurred in the course of development of art history concerning the fate of the style of realism paintings, and misunderstanding or prejudice, got tangled all together to form the situation that this paintings have not been fairly appreciated even till now for the period as long as more than a century. As it is a story concerned with Western art history, this tendency is true not only in Japan, but also in Europe, USA or other countries on a global scale. However, as such situation occurred almost with no relation to any default of the style of realism, I think it should be rectified as early as possible from the viewpoint of fairly appreciating the artists of realism paintings as well. It seems that at present realism paintings are in the process of revaluation, though it is too gradual. However, the tendency of making little account of realism paintings that was formed at a golden age of post-realism paintings remains strong-rooted even now to successively serve as one of factors of unpopularity of the style of realism. That’s why the elimination of such a situation is required to accelerate this revaluation. Fortunately, we can take measures to get rid of this psychological factor by clearing up the misunderstanding. Therefore, availing myself of this opportunity, I’d like to point out where exist the main causes of long-lasting unpopularity of realism paintings and try to clarify these causes in detail.